If Only to Wait
by Demyrie
Summary: The alliance was made. But to bear Magus' presence, even for Crono's sake? Never without pain. Poison in the form of a white man. A beast. I suffer in the name of what I cannot do. PostZeal, SPOILERY excerpt. FrogxCyrus, CronoxMarle.


A/N: Hi tharr, Demz heer XB My first non-JnD fic, hallelujah!

I adore CyrusxGlenn. Like, so freaking much. In the immortal words of my darling, THEIRLOVEISSOOLDENGLISH! (And there is nothing of it! ;.;)

Motives: I was really saddened to see Frog have to endure Magus' presence after their horrid past together, but equally sad that the script kinda… passed over the AGONY he must have felt in teaming up with the brute! I MEAN COME ON, Magus murdered Cyrus! Glenn's true-freaking-love!

That would suck. And thus, I write things. XD

He's so gorgeously tragic, Frog is. Meep.

-.-.-.-

Stuff: LOADS OF FROG. And Marle. CyrusxGlenn, CronoxMarle, CHEESY STUPID ENDING, lots of angst, some minor (possibly masamune-related) plot squiggles missed? Not my best. The end.

Other Stuff: CT (c) Squaresoft, Square Enix, whutevnotmine.

-.-.-.-

If Only to Wait

-.-.-.-

"You dare insult him!"

"He's history," came the derisive snort. "Play with fire and you get burned."

The group recoiled in some base shock. But _he_ darted forward in the wet snow, snatching his blade free from his side—it was a cold arrow, citing on the fiend's heart.

"Magus, hold thy tongue!" He warned.

Magus regarded the drawn weapon with a black glare, eyes rising evenly to meet Frog's. With an unheard snap, the air tightened impossibly around them all, caving and sucking in at invisible, itching points. Marle cried out, straining at the cocoon of power. Magus did not stir, unaffected by the dark web.

"Do you wish to fight me?" He demanded, only then allowing the power to come through in the words—it rushed around him, wormed into him, hair and cape fluttering furiously. The net only tightened.

_His_ hands were free. He was in no way restrained, and he shook with the effort of remaining still with his sword outstretched. Hovering uselessly, and not wreaking immediate bloody revenge on he who had—

And even then, Cyrus burned in his mind. Magus' power—Magus' infinite power-- had killed the man he held as a god. Once again he was that young thing who knew nothing of facing a monster, sick with fear and horror. His nightmares were made of this beast, and the fiend's red eyes had not changed in all those years.

_A warrior must safeguard his body solely to enact the will of his heart. One cannot act without a body. Remember this, and shield thyself accordingly._

Slowly, creaking as he did so, Frog straightened in the cold wind.

"Vanquishing thee will return neither Crono nor Cyrus." He said haltingly. The Masamune fell to his side, tip embedded in the snow. The dark net released, bringing Marle's tittering sigh with it, but the mage was not finished with them.

Gaspar. Time streams. Crono. Unholy alliance.

Magus made his offer.

"Treachery!" Frog snarled—his blade whipped upwards again, forced by the utter revulsion in his gut. Magus did not move to counter. He simply waited.

An unholy silence hung about the unnaturally restless sea. Black waves slopped, swallowed, gulped. Not a breath was taken, but one still heard the lost cries of those trapped within white halls. Shrieks, screams, dying in a utopia. The holy drowning in their gilded cage. But the offer was understood; the need was apparent. All had made the connection, and seen the possibility in Magus' offer. Equally, all had seen the obstacle.

As one, all had looked towards him.

He felt them watch his still-raised blade, now trembling in his grip. A life was at stake. Fail to accept the offer, and he might save a ghost.

The beloved weapon fell with a clack, but the gloved hand that held it was limp, and did not move to sheathe it.

"Fine. We may have use of thy skills later."

He turned a directionless, marble eye toward Magus. Tension snapped between the two, older than the ages and rising like quick black water, but Frog turned and stalked off before the inevitable crash. Magus watched coldly from his position at the cliff, arms folded across his chest. The group did not dare follow.

Unavenged, Frog retreated.

-.-.-.-

In time, the rest of the group had made an uneasy armistice. When they trudged back to the dirty huts for a few days rest-- most half-wondering if Magus would tail them and feeling uncomfortable when he did-- Marle hung behind. Watching and waiting with soft eyes, she followed Frog the moment everyone forgot her.

She sniffed and waded through the snow, drifting through the alien landscape with a heavy, unwilling body. In time, she found him around the commons, hidden away behind a cliff side. He knelt in the wet white snow, breathing heavily. His throat bulged rhymically, all too cream-colored and amphibian, but he bowed and shuddered as a human does when vomiting. As Marle approached, she began to fear the cold may have truly gotten to him, as he shivered where he stood. Suddenly, he pressed a gloved hand against the cliff side and slid to his last knee.

"Frog?" She said softly. "Are you-?"

"Aye." He breathed, warm steam filtering out of his cold mottled skin. If he stayed this way, it was certain he would suffer. He seemed to harden unnaturally as he knelt, green becoming waxy, eyes frosting over. "Were I but human, I should weep befitting the sorrow in me."

A beat, then he gulped, voice thick and angry as he blurted, "Tears, nay- I should pray the gods at least give me leave to _wretch_ in suffering that beast so near to me!"

Marle drew back, uncertain. She tried to think of magus—she tried to think of hating someone so much as to want to kill them, but Crono infected her mind. He was all, and the memories spread, gathered, devoured. Nothing was wrong, and she was warmed so completely until she remembered _darkness blood red laughing horrifying weight on her neck watching him die_ and had it all sucked away. But there was that hope.

She clenched her eyes and drew a deep breath.

"You don't know that--" She started,

"Forgiveness be not within me! It hath never been!"

Suddenly animated and fearsome, he whirled around to face her.

"Take not sides, sweet Marle-- thou know'st not what he hath done. Thou wilt ne'er know as I know!" He croaked viciously, and it was comical to see his throat swell, but somehow the gravelly sound-- the serrated sound of something ripping-- made Marle flinch. She looked at him with wet eyes, too tired and too afraid and too heartbroken after--

Crono.

He glared at her, then returned to his wounded crouch, mottled head against the cliff.

The wind wailed on.

"You really hate him?"

"Sweet lady… I would offer my life if it should end his. Indeed, such an exchange would but send me whence I wish to be." He spoke sternly, finalizing his every emotion towards that cold specter of hatred. But Marle's sweet white figure standing outside his straight vision-- the strange, bowl-distortion bulge of his eyes allowed him to see her-- pulled yet more from him in the cold steady wind and knee-deep snow.

"He took'st what I did treasure most in this world." He whispered.

Marle stayed silent. Frog's pain, now stirred from its crucible, sought more to ease its existence.

"It wreaks pain upon my soul to have Cyrus' murderer within arms reach-- such a pain as that is all too easily brought to flesh. I suffer, in the name of what I cannot do." He spoke and trembled, "Damn the needs of the world. Already, forsooth… already my body doth beg me rid it of this poison!"

Poison in the form of a white man. A beast. An overwhelming hatred at the mere memory, thick and cold and leaden in his gut.

And to think.

"_So! Thou art… thou art that filthy urchin!"_

_He floated so confidently in his long red robes. His high chinned stare, impertinent cold radiating scorn—_

"_Don't waste your time with Alfador. He only likes me." _

_Had he killed the boy then he never would have grown to adulthood, never to murder Cyrus never to wreak this horror--_

Frog swallowed.

"I am where and when I should not be." His voice shook as he voiced a law and a horror that had shaken him since the beginning. "I do but gaze at him and it doth produce an anger so deep I fear for myself."

"He… murdered your mentor. Didn't he?" Marle asked softly.

"Aye." But it sounded hollow-- as though the event had been painfully simplified, and he lay quietly aghast at the prospect such simplicity. Never for a thing so vital, so wounding. "My mentor, my friend, and my soul."

There was a pause as Frog struggled not with what he had said, but with what he could say to make her see.

"Think'st of… Crono, Marle."

She did, and her body became cold and small and a hand clapped to her mouth. She trembled inside, feeling that thin shield crumble. But she did not hate Frog for saying his name, nor exposing a fresh wound-- every crippling pain she felt, she saw in him and was kept from anger.

"Think'st of how thou did love him-- and what act would'st thou commit, if just to regain him?"

"Anything." She promised.

But he was comparing Cyrus to Crono.

Frog knew Marle loved Crono-- she'd told him so, or let it slip when they were all around a fire and his reptilian eyes had winked wryly and he had croaked smug and deep, and… the simple memory of that fire; of waiting for Crono to come back as he found some water, only clouded her mind further. Why was she thinking after this again?

"We have a chance to regain Crono. Tis' true." He said blankly. "But think'st- if thou wert force'd to… visit his grave?"

His voice began to tremble

"If thou could'st not but see the cold truth of it, his name and title and nothing of the man he was, woven in cold stone and no body beneath its damning weight—faith--"

He sobbed invisibly, eyes glassy and wide.

"Time matters not. Ten years it hath been. He doth die daily within me." He murmured, choking. "The pain be ever-fresh. Dead? Nay, nay. Ne'er dead in such a sense. Gone though he may be, he dwells within. I wake from him, and sleep only to dream. And would I have him go?"

He made a strange, rolling noise-- another amphibian sob-- and looked up at her, paralyzed with a bitter chuckle.

"Nay. I would not have him go. Though he pains me, he shall stay." He searched her eyes, but not for disgust. "Once, I was call'd Glenn. Now, he is the only soul that doth keep me so. A man. Ne'er a beast."

Through their months together, Marle knew nothing of this creature. He was a fascination, an oddity with a thick ancient tongue and a strange maturity tempered with a childish chivalry. But now, ripped from a red wet wound of the heart, she knew. Frog—Glenn-- did love Cyrus so completely that even death did not part them.

Frog knelt silently in the snow for a moment, breathing almost to himself. Forcing the action, if just to prolong his life.

"Forgive'st me, Marle." He whispered, sandpapery and low. "If mine strength doth fail thee and thy friends in crisis. My soul doth bleed, and this hatred be the knife that twists me so-- I cannot abide his presence. Not for long."

"I shall slay him." He said softly, all attention surging inward with a promise to himself. "I may have no rest until I do slay this beast and so lay Cyrus' soul to rest alongside my dying heart—if only to wait for him."

Then he smiled, sure and broken. His eyes saw other things and his hands loosened on his sword.

"If only to wait."

"You loved him." Marle said suddenly, and it would have been daring. It would have been shocking, because the word love was no mistake. But Frog simply nodded.

"Aye." He said softly. "To such lengths that, to this day… his death make'th little sense to me."

His cold amphibian lips twitched and revived his faint smile.

"His grave, I thought-- but a nightmare. How should a man so bright, so true and warm have left this earth so? But then, this world overflows with injustice of the most wicked sort. Pain is a thing that cannot be felt every waking moment."

He got to his feet, but Marle stepped forward to stop him. Entranced.

"What can?"

"Love." He said simply.

Joining her, Frog offered her his arm. She took it after a moment, bending down slightly. He gazed up at her, marble eyes shifting wetly, and she was not repulsed.

"Crono shall not be lost." He croaked.

He began to walk with her, shielding her from the cold and the wind, and she cried because she knew it to be true.

She held him tightly, sobbing silently into her sleeve. All she could do was wait.


End file.
